Large trucks of the off-highway type give rise to shipping problems since various state regulations restrict the shipping thereof on commercial carriers. A truck body is normally fully fabricated at a manufacturing facility to secure the various plate and beam members thereof together. One prior art technique for overcoming the shipping problems is one of cutting the completed truck body into several sections at the various weld joints to separate the truck body into component parts for shipping purposes.
The component parts are then reassembled and aligned at a remote job site by utilization of relatively complex fixtures and methods for applying high quality welds to the weld joints which have been severed previously. Such a procedure is laborious and time consuming and occasionally the resulting welds may be found defective to impair the overall structural integrity of the completed truck body.
A more recent solution to the shipping problems may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,938,238, assigned to the assignee of this application. As disclosed in this patent, a truck body is fabricated to comprise a bottom section and a pair of side sections which are preassembled at a manufacturing facility, disassembled for shipping purposes and thereafter reassembled and secured together at a remote job site. A front module and canopy module are thereafter secured to the other modules to complete the truck body for mounting on the undercarriage of a vehicle.
As will be hereinafter described, the modular truck body and method of this invention constitute improvements over that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,938,238. In particular, assembly time and the number of welds employed are substantially reduced and the integrated truck body exhibits a substantial increase in structural integrity thereover. Regarding the latter desideratum, loads imposed upon the floor section of a truck body during the loading and carrying phases of vehicle operation tend to exert substantial forces thereon.